Productivity & Collaboration week is still underway at Cloud Next ’20: On Air. Google Cloud and Box today announced a deeper collaboration that spans both infrastructure and end-user productivity.
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In addition to group calls on the Nest Hub Max today, Google is previewing a number of upcoming Meet features for education and enterprise customers. This includes blurred and custom backgrounds, hand raising, and new moderation controls.
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Last night, a big Gmail redesign that puts Chat, Meet, and Docs side-by-side leaked out early. Google today officially announced its vision for having Gmail be the new “home for work” and G Suite.
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For the past several weeks, we’ve been tracking a big Gmail for Android redesign that incorporates Google Chat and Meet. The video calling integration has been officially announced and is rolling out now, while the rest leaked today. Google is making Gmail the “new home for work” by letting you do everything from the same screen/app.
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Following a minor layout tweak last week, Calendar on the web is getting a more substantial usability change to how you add events. Google Calendar’s pop-up dialog now lets you directly add more advanced event details.
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For the past several iOS (now iPadOS) releases, Apple has worked to improve multitasking on tablets. Split View lets you use two app at the same time, and Gmail on iPads now has support for this feature.
Google’s goal with G Suite is to leverage AI to boost user productivity, with Smart Compose in Gmail and Docs being prime examples. Google Sheets is gaining similar features this year with Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup.
With video conferencing skyrocketing due to COVID-19, Google has been heavily pushing Meet to G Suite users. After rolling out Gmail integration last week, Google Meet is now adding a tiled layout for larger calls, low-light mode, and noise cancellation.
Google today issued a warning that older G Suite apps will stop working in August as it works to improve performance and security.
The unifying goal of Google’s productivity apps is leveraging machine learning to boost end user productivity. Today, Google is adding Spanish support for grammar suggestions in Gmail and Docs, with autocorrect and Smart Compose coming later this year.
Last year, Google introduced ‘.new’ links to create blank documents in the web. Following this week’s Gmail integration, Google Meet is now the latest G Suite app to get a similar shortcut to immediately start a call.
While Drive for Android gained a dark theme last April, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides have been notable holdouts. Night-friendly modes for these apps are coming and will likely also apply to the document view.
Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, and other G Suite apps all feature a side panel that provides quick access to Tasks, Keep, and third-party add-ons. The Google Calendar widget available in the sidebar will soon let users directly edit existing events.
As part of the rebrand and free tier, Google announced a number of Meet features like a window arrangement that supports up to 16 participants and AI-powered tools. Google Meet is now getting a Tiled view that works with presentations and other UI enhancements.
After tweaking the search bar, Google is rolling out a more substantial update to Docs, Sheets, and Slides for Android. The UI for commenting has been redesigned to be more mobile-friendly.
Gmail for Android’s dark theme began rolling out at the start of this month. Google today is now making the look official and providing an availability timeline, while also bringing it to iOS.
While Google+, the social network, was shut down on April 2, 2019, a G Suite version for enterprise communication still exists. Google Currents was announced as a rebrand just after the consumer deprecation last year and is now set to launch on July 6.
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Last August, Google delayed the classic Hangouts transition for G Suite customers into this year. Starting today, admins can migrate their users to Google Chat in earnest and get access to Gmail integration.
Back in February, we spotted Voice appearing in Gmail’s side panel. Google Voice integration in Gmail on the web is now official for G Suite customers, along with call transfer capabilities.
G Suite’s productivity apps are seeing a pair of updates on Android and the web today. On the latter platform, there’s a Google Docs “document status” indicator, while the mobile apps pick up a new search field.
Google’s enterprise communication tools have seen a flurry of changes in recent weeks. The latest is a Progressive Web App for Google Chat that replaces the existing Electron client.
Google Groups is an email-based forum aimed at sharing information and other resources within an organization. The new Google Groups with Material Theme redesign is rolling out to enterprise customers next month.
As part of Meet becoming available to the public, Google closely aligned the video calling service with Gmail. However, some have not liked how the integration appears on the web, with users now able to hide Google Meet in Gmail.
